


Two Wrongs Make a Right

by Llama1412



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-28
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23501425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: The Doctor learns to accept the Wrongness of a Fact.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Kudos: 20





	Two Wrongs Make a Right

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to livejournal and whofic.com in 2011. Posted unedited.

Rose was still coming with him, despite the regeneration, despite everything that had just happened.

Despite the fact that he'd let Jack die and refused to tell her what really happened.

She was coming with him again, but she'd asked for the night to spend with her mother, to say goodbye

He had time.

He let himself into a bedroom near the console room, just beyond the room Rose normally occupied. Even though Jack was gone now, the room stayed where it was instead of getting buried amongst the remains of his past companions. He was glad.

The room was just as they'd left it, sheets untidy from their last lazy romp. Jack's old RAF uniform was draped over a chair and his sonic blaster was lying in pieces across the desk where Jack had been trying to find a substitute energy source. All in all, it looked as if he'd never left, as if he'd be coming back, pushing the Doctor down onto this same bed and exploring all the nuances of this new body.

But he wouldn't be. _Couldn't_ be, because even now, the Doctor could feel him, that obscene still in a universe that is spinning, moving, hurtling around its focus. It tingled on the edges of his senses, always there no matter how far he ran.

He had to keep running, though. No matter how much he wanted to go find Jack, to hold him in his arms and find out what sort of man this regeneration was together, he couldn't. Jack was wrong and he _burned_ in his mind, like staring into a supernova that would never stop exploding, never stop drawing him in with its beauty and pushing him away with its danger.

Jack would laugh at him for running from danger, but he couldn't understand. The Doctor loved danger, craved it, but despised it. He knew how bad the addiction was for him, knew how it grated on his sanity and put his companions at risk, but he kept going back for more.

Not this time. It hurt too much this time to let himself get close. No, this time, he wouldn't be inviting the danger in. This time, Jack was never coming home.

Since Jack wasn't here to do it, wouldn't be here to do it again, he set about discovering his new body himself. His neck was sensitive; Jack would've loved that. He dragged his fingertips lightly across the skin, imagining how Jack's lips would trace the tendons, his teeth bite at the flesh. He skimmed the shell of one ear, now of a more ordinary size, recalling the heat of breath from whispered words. The earlobe was fun to tug at, to run his nail over as Jack's teeth would've done. They weren't as sensitive as they once were, but Jack would've found a way to drive him crazy, no doubt.

His hands slid down his chest. His nipples were more responsive than before. Almost as much as Jack's were. He grinned, closing his eyes and picturing the evening where he'd made Jack come by playing with his nipples alone. It had been good, then, that he was invulnerable to the same playful torture. Now, though, he rolled hard nubs between his fingers and sighed.

His hips jutted out more in this body. Rassilon, he really was ridiculously thin. Still, the protrusions weren't too bad. They would've fit Jack's palms perfectly and made it easier for him to leave the lovebites Jack had always loved to mark him with. _"No one else knows they're there," Jack had said, "but I do. And you do. And if anyone tries to get into your pants, they see that you're already mine. Under that leather jacket and that grumpy face, you're all mine. Every time you feel that mark rubbing against your waistband, remember that."_

He tilted his head back and panted. The sheets and pillows around him held Jack's scent and he rolled over, breathing in deep as he ground into the mattress. He could remember Jack's weird over him, pushing him down, pushing into him and drawing out those needy sounds he'd always been reluctant to admit to.

The last time he'd been here, he'd woken up in a playful mood and had crawled over his lover, mouthing at him until he began to stir. As soon as Jack had been lucid, he'd taken the human into his throat and worked him over leisurely until he'd come with the most arousing moan he'd ever heard.

The memory was enough to bring him over the edge, leaving him sprawled in a spreading dampness and realizing that this would mean he'd have to change the sheets to something clean and not infused with Jack's pheromones. He frowned and buried his head in a pillow.

\--

He'd never slept often or regularly, so there was no reason for Rose to notice that he'd begun staying in Jack's room rather than his own.

She'd understand, if she found out, but she's look at him with those soft, pitying eyes and he'd remember how she trusted him never to leave, never to hurt those he loved.

No, it was better if she didn't notice. He could forget that he'd resigned Jack to a fate worse than death and was still too scared to do anything about it.

\--

The room didn't smell much like Jack anymore, but he could pretend. With Rose gone and his own tears staining the pillows, he could pretend that Jack, his Jack, mortal Jack, was still here, grieving with him.

\--

Martha found him once, in a room that was so clearly not his own, judging by the confusion written across her face. He was in the middle of the bed, curled around a pillow that was too soft to be what he really wanted. He was too tired to do anything more than stare until she felt awkward enough to apologize and leave without any questions. On her way out, her eyes lingered on the framed photograph of Rose, Jack, and his last self hugging each other and smiling in front of the grandiose tomb of the last emperor of Zedlon III.

\--

When Jack found him again in Cardiff, when he saw that man – so much older now, but he still looked the same – running at him, his hands were moving without conscious thought. The dematerialization sequence began and he spared a wishful thought for times past. But it wasn't to be. Jack still blaze in his senses, still made every atom of his being repelled at the Wrongness. He had to run.

But Jack wasn't letting him. His foolish, willful Jack was latched onto the outside of the TARDIS. He stared in shock at the screen that declared them further in time than he'd ever gone before, and worried. What if the Vortex had killed Jack permanently? The same energies had been keeping him alive. What if the Vortex depleted that TARDIS-given life of Jack's?

He refused to believe it. A Wrong Jack was better than a Dead Jack, even if he couldn't have either of them. He dragged Martha away from the corpse and hoped.

Sure enough, Jack gasped back to life and timelines swirled around him at a dizzying rate. Was this what happened every time he came back, that agonized breath and the timelines spiraling out of control?

Jack's hug was a singular experience. It felt so good to be in those arms again, to have that human warmth wrapped around him, but at the same time, that horrifying stillness centered on him and he felt lost in a way he had never been. A Time Lord's ability to find his bearings in time and space was given at birth. Never before had he felt so distanced from star configurations and planetary motions and chaotic timelines. It brought on a terrifying feeling of helplessness.

But no, that wasn't helplessness. Helplessness was sitting here, in a body aged beyond its years, and doing nothing but watch as the Master destroyed everything that mattered.

The year was agony. Of all the Time Lords to survive, why the Master? It could've been Susan or Romana or almost anyone else. Why the Master?

But it didn't matter. They were the last two left, and the Doctor couldn't go back to that emptiness, that silence in his head. He just couldn't. He had to save the Master, and then then make him understand why he'd done it. The Master could forgive him, could tell him that nothing else could've been done.

Only it didn't work and the only other Time Lord in existence died in his arms as that crushing silence came folding back in. But Jack was there, strong Jack, who held him close and let him cry without question or judgment. And that Wrongness, that glaring blindness and eerie stillness, became a comfort to him. It kept him grounded and safe.

The rest of the universe was still there, still beckoning to the Doctor and calling for his help, but it didn't matter, because Jack drove it all away. In the stillness of Jack's arms, the universe stopped screaming and he could close his eyes and hear Martha's soft voice and Jack's steady breathing. In that moment, the stillness became the most desirable thing in existence.

\--

The Paradox Machine broke his hearts. All year, he'd had to listen to the anguish of his poor TARDIS as her insides were ripped apart and warped. Now, the task of rebirthing her as she should be was daunting, but Jack and Martha were both there to help. And Jack... Jack understood the TARDIS, as much as his limited ape brain could. He knew she was alive and he knew how to treat her and which of her circuits should go where. It was a relief to have that fallback, to relax against Martha's quiet support and block out everything except Jack's Stillness as he crooned at the TARDIS.

He'd avoided sleeping as long as he could. The silence in his head was sure to bring back memories of the War and as much as his body need rest, he really didn't want to deal with that. So he kept working instead while Martha bid him goodnight and Jack trotted off to the room the Doctor have been living out of.

He froze. Surely Jack wouldn't notice. He'd just think the TARDIS had made the bed and leave it at that. Yes. He kept tinkering with his ship, sending occasional glances down the hall. Jack would be sleeping by now, head nested on pillows that had held the Doctor's lonely scent for too long. His limbs would be twisted in soft sheets, his spine relaxed into the supple mattress. Would he touch himself, the Doctor wondered, indulge in the hedonistic pleasure Jack was famous for? Or was he too tired, too broken from that year to seek pleasure?

No. He shook his head to dispel such thoughts. He had work to do here. His poor girl was sick and in desperate need of a Doctor. Distractions could not be tolerated.

It wasn't until four days later, standing in the doorway and staring at a supine Jack, that he realized he didn't actually have a place to sleep. Well, he did; his ship could provide him with any room he needed, even in the state she was in. But they weren't rooms he wanted, weren't places he felt safe and comfortable sleeping in. After two years, Jack's room had become his default sanctuary and he was discomfited to realize that he didn't really want that to change.

In the time it took him to hover uncertainly in the entrance, Jack's eyes fluttered open and he gazed at him with a disconcerting lack of surprise. A hand was extended to him as Jack wriggled around to make room on the bed.

"Don't think this means we don't have things to discuss," Jack said.

His throat closed up and he nodded awkwardly, twining their fingers together. Jack smiled softly, the most genuine expression he'd seen since the Year, and pulling him in, cradling Doctor against his chest.

Instead of haunting memories of the War, he dreamed of a future with Jack, his one universal constant.


End file.
